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Author: Sarah McCarthy

Top anti-bullying tips:

It doesn’t matter what colour hair you have; what trainers you are wearing; how you speak; how you walk; how you talk – it is not your fault if you get bullied. We are all different in some way and that’s what makes us amazing.

Whether you are a boy or a girl, old or young, big or small – bullying makes you feel rubbish and it’s okay to be upset about it. The important thing is that you tell someone about it.

Keep a record of what happened, when it happened, and who was involved. If the bullying is online, keep the evidence – save or copy any photos, videos, texts, emails or posts.

It can be tempting if you are being bullied to retaliate – for example to send a horrible message back to someone; to try and embarrass and hurt the other person, or to fight back. This is not a good idea– you might end up being seen as the trouble maker or get yourself even more hurt.

Remember to be kind to other people! Just because someone is different to you and your friends – that doesn’t mean you are better than them or have a right to make them feel bad. If you mess up, say sorry. You don’t have to be friends with everyone – but you should always show respect, make it clear that you don’t like it when people bully others, and stick up for people who are having a hard time.

Take a look below at JTM’s poster for anti-bullying week !

Snapchat is a mobile app that allows you to send videos and pictures to your Snapchat contacts, but will disappear after a few seconds of the person viewing them. Snapchat also allows you to send direct messages, where you can capture a photo or brief video, add a caption or filter over the top, and then send the finished ‘snap’ to a friend.

Alternatively, you can also add your snap to your “story”, which is a collection of your snaps that are live for your contacts to view for 24 hours only, and then will also disappear.

Last week, Snapchat released a new feature called ‘Snapmaps’. This allows users to see where in the country their Snapchat contacts are, as well as seeing location based photos and videos. This feature allows others to accurately pinpoint where you are. There are three possible privacy settings:

Ghost mode, where only you can see your position;

My Friends mode, where any contact can see your location; and

Select Friends mode, just those who you choose can see you

Read Childnet’s guide on how to change your settings in order to stay safe, whilst using the app